


at transformation

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22055797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: Soulmates in Jugdral prove a many-splendored but dreadfully tangled thing. After all, it's Jugdral. Inspired by the prompt "AU where people age until they reach 18 and then stop aging until they meet their soul mate so they can grow old together" plus some of Jugdral's own oddities of character design.
Relationships: Aoife | Oifey/Shannan, Arvis/Diadora | Deirdre, Cian | Quan/Ethlyn, Diadora | Deirdre/Siglud | Sigurd, Unconsummated Eldigan/Lachesis, Unrequited Azelle/Edain
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	at transformation

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmates are mutual, not asymmetric or unrequited in this. Otherwise it's not a soulmate bond!

_dawn_

Sigurd sees the glow in his sister’s face before anyone, and at first he doesn’t know what to make of it. He convinces himself that Ethlyn’s done it on purpose somehow, that she’s throwing off her guise of the tomboy princess to better step into the role of Chalphy’s chatelaine. It’s only the day that he looks at Quan as they unwind after sparring and thinks “when did Quan get older than me?” that Sigurd realizes something is afoot, that his best friend and little sister are moving onto the next phase of life without him. It’s strange and new and to see them makes his heart sing… even as he’s left a little lonely.

_unlit candle_

Azelle knows, deep in his heart, that Lady Edain isn’t for him, that his mission to win her heart and hand is nothing more than a fantasy— albeit one to which he’s committed his life and the life of his best friend. He holds the evidence for himself between his fingers every time puts his face down in his hands and feels his own soft cheeks. He is a boy, will be forever a boy, because she is too good for him.

_white rosebuds_

If not for Ares, Eldigan knows the court would already be a-twitter with rumors of Lord Nordion’s failing marriage. Lady Grahnye, despite her precarious health, is as girlish as the day she arrived from Leonster, and already looks more suited to be a companion to Lady Lachesis than a wife to Eldigan. 

As for Lachesis… each time Eldigan looks at his sister’s wide eyes, he strains to see any hint of a change, for the advent of a maturation that will reveal their accursed bond before the world… and will make the Lady of Nordion the laughingstock of Agustria in the process. He can live with his own shame— unspoken, unconsummated, but as fated as the power of the Black Knight that runs through his blood. Shaming Grahnye and their son is unforgivable. One day he will burn for it.

_noontide_

If Ethlyn had any doubts about her brother’s hasty marriage, they vanish like snow before the sun within months of his wedding to Deirdre. The last traces of Sigurd’s long-held boyhood fall away, and as Ethlyn sees her Lord Brother as the man he was always meant to be, she reaches for her handkerchief and blots away tears of sheer joy at what finding Deirdre has done for him. It’s like a poem, a song, a bard’s ballad come to life around them all, with Sigurd as the Hero and Deirdre as his Lady, and their love is as genuine as the warm touch of light on their faces.

_blossom_

Silvia plucks the first gray hair out of her bangs without even thinking about it. Any dancer would. But then she stops, that one silver strand between her fingers, and marvels at the omen. She’s traded on being a “little girl” for so very long that the game is starting to tire her out, and now here’s a sign from the heavens that love is real and she doesn’t have to keep up the act anymore. She leaps onto her toes and twirls despite the close walls of her room. Love is real, real, real as her first gray hair… and a part of her feels freed.

_embers_

Deirdre traces one ethereal finger over the crease between his brows as though to smooth it away, and Arvis feels his blood resonate at her touch. Even Naga’s mighty powers can’t take away the new lines in his face, and Arvis wouldn’t want them to— Deirdre put them there, after all. He wears his aging face, his greying hair, as a badge of honor before all the court and most especially before Manfroy. _We are in love._ None can deny this love, a love manifest in the Emperor’s own flesh. There can be no clearer sign of fate’s blessing than this.

_stasis_

Finn hasn’t aged a day. The shock of recognition hits Oifey like a splash of cold water; he’s seen the Unchanged before, of course, but to meet someone like this, after seventeen years, and to realize that time has passed the other by…

Except of course it hasn’t. It’s all in Finn’s eyes, in that lingering reflection of Leonster’s inferno that’s never faded. Oifey does manage to broach the subject once, when they’re patrolling the walls of Manster Palace and no other is there to hear.

“I thought that… Lachesis…"

 _It wasn’t like that._ Finn doesn’t speak it aloud, doesn’t have to. Those haunted eyes in that eighteen-year-old’s face speak loudly enough. That night, Lewyn strikes up a song of love, of souls entwined, of the mystical moment when lovers realize they’ll grow old together. Oifey, his fingers brushing carelessly against Shannan’s, closes his own eyes so he doesn’t have to watch.

_analemma_

Lana always thought her mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, but it’s only when she welcomes Mother home to Belhalla that Lana truly understands. They look like sisters now; Lana wears her hair in long waves like Mother’s, but Mother’s hair is the gold of a morning sun while Lana’s is the amber of the afternoon’s light. 

_Love has made me what I am_ , thinks Lana, no longer the baby of Tirnanog now that she’s found her other half. _But that means that Mother…_

They kneel together in prayer for Lana’s father and all the other martyrs. Lana steals a glance at her mother, robed and crowned as a queen but with the face of a true goddess, ageless and timeless. Mother loved Father, surely. She must have. And yet…

Tears prick at Lana’s eyes— perhaps more for herself, as she squirms inside yet again at the impossibly tangled workings of Fate, than for Edain’s lonely vigil.

**Author's Note:**

> The identities of Silvia's lover and Edain's husband left open to reader interpretation, though Edain/Azelle would be fitting. Lana's soulmate can be Seliph or Julia, whichever you prefer (I was leaning toward Julia but YMMV). As for Deirdre triggering the soulmate bond in two different people, which Should Not Happen, well... she's special. :P


End file.
